Man, I thought the rain was finally over in So Cal, but here it is, raining again. I think we got all of the Pacific Northwest’s rain for the season. Houses are sliding off of hillsides everywhere, streets are crumbling away… When will it end?

Picked up a copy of Tim Buckley’s Happy Sad the other day and was blown away. I loved Goodbye and Hello but had mixed feelings about some of the other stuff I’d heard. This album is really dreamy and groovy all the way through. One of the songs that most grabbed my attention was “Love from Room 109 at the Islander (On Pacific Coast Highway).” I’ve read that Buckley was originally an Orange County musician who performed locally, and The Islander sounded familiar, like I’d seen it around, so I looked it up. Indeed, there’s an Islander Motel not too far from here. On a whim, I went out to see it, with Happy Sad loaded into my iPod shuffle. I can’t say for sure it’s the same place, but the architecture is classic 60’s and it’s right near the beach (hence the ocean sounds in the song). The size of the hotel seems to fit the 109 room number. I resisted the urge to get out and actually look for it. Anyway… just a romantic gesture for a romantic song by a romantic artist.

Things have been too crazy around here lately to get anything musical done! Over the past several months, the building has had work done on the electrical system, plumbing, bathroom, and outside paint, and there’s still more work to be completed. It’s really hard to find any quiet time for studio work or even just Internet deejaying! I had hoped to edit together this great new Hungry Lucy interview feature for Chillcuts last Sunday, but it was impossible. I didn’t even do a show.

We’ve been working on a Pink Floyd cover, though, which is fun. It’s a bit easier to record a song you didn’t write, since it doesn’t require as much time and concentration. I don’t know if we’ll include it on our new album, since we already have the tracklisting selected and pre-mastering done. Who knows, though?

Went to the Apple store yesterday. Boy, is that place dangerous! So much cool stuff. I always want to get one of each… They were still out of the new iPod shuffles. Turns out they have a waiting list! Sheesh. Anyway, I picked up the new iLife suite. Hopefully I will have a better time of upgrading it this time around. I’m excited about the new iPhoto books and the fact that I can now import my digital camera’s movie files into the program. Yay! I wish iWorks had been a part of this software suite, instead of it being bundled with Keynote. Seems like a weird decision on Apple’s part, but I suppose they will sell a heck of a lot more Keynotes this way! iWorks looks pretty cool, hopefully it’s worth the cash. I’m totally over AppleWorks and I don’t like the idea of using Word. Macentric, I know!

Just found out about a place that sells FLAC (and OGG) files online. I was just talking about that concept, too. The only catch is, it costs artists $50 a year to use their service plus they take a cut of each sale. Whole albums sell for just $8.99, which is a bit cheap considering they take almost half of that. So I don’t know if that’s what we’d want to do. Probably better to set up our own online store with FLAC files. Or SHN files. Anyway, the site URL is www.mindawn.com. Trippy.

It seems like we always come back to the question of genre with our music. It’s unfortunate that promotions rely on super specific categories, but that’s just the way it is. The music world is like a giant data base in that way. Folks want to be able to put each band and release into a box so that they can stack it up with other boxes into neat little tables (data base “tables,” not dining room “tables”). I can understand the need to organize information like that, but with something like music it isn’t always so simple. Sure, some bands are totally fine making a career out of one style of music writing, song after song, album after album, but we aren’t. Since 1999, Ryan and I have shifted musical styles drastically, and since 1991, Ryan has made some pretty dramatic evolutions in his sound.

I’m thinking today about the fact that our last album, Windblown Kiss, is listed as “Jazz.” While that is a very cool genre and all, it really doesn’t successfully describe our CD. Nor does “Electronica” really represent the myriad styles of LSD’s retrospective collection, Temporal. Our upcoming album could be listed under either of those genres, and either way it would be missing the whole “Rock” element also inherent in the songs. Not only are the songs each of different genre varieties, but many of the songs themselves are a mix of genres. So how the heck are we going to categorize this one? And how is our band itself being classified?

Finally the storm has broken here in Southern California, to be replaced by a wonderfully warm Santa Ana wind. Mmm… Actually went to the beach yesterday and laid out, enjoying my new iPod. I hope this weather lasts long enough for us to sneak in a band photo shoot. It’s about time we got some current portraits taken. I’m also starting to seriously think about album art for the new CD cover. We’ll probably go with colorful nature shots again, but maybe a bit less abstract this time. I’m not sure that folks even realize that the Windblown Kiss artwork is photos of reflections in water or not?

Ryan and I have come to the realization that 128kbps mp3s are way too old school. Like, so 1998!

I’ve been re-encoding my digital music library into 320kbps AAC files, which sound much better — much better even that 320kbps mp3 files. For special albums, I’m using Apple Lossless, which sounds basically like an AIFF or WAV file (which is what CDs are generally made from), but is only about half the size. I mean, I have a huge hard drive, so why not enjoy my music in hi-res quality?

I love the concept of the iTunes store, and selling our music there, but what I don’t love is the sound quality. We make these gorgeous 24bit start-to-finish albums (more music geek talk, I know!), only to have it all squashed down into measly 128k mp3 files. It’s murder! We really need to figure out a way to sell our fans nice, high quality files worthy of critical listening.

It’s so sad how the music industry is completely melting down under the pressure of new technology. Kids today don’t even think they should have to buy CDs anymore! They are perfectly content with crappy mp3s files traded on the Internet.

It seems that a whole new model for music is necessary now, one that somehow combines professional quality sound with affordable prices so that we artists can get our music out to fans in a format that is not only convenient, but great sounding, doesn’t cost too much, and yet allows us to cover all the costs of creating and distributing the music.

Any bright ideas, anyone?

If you happen to be into groovy jazzy pop songs like I am, especially those with an early 1970’s vibe with lots of sweet rhodes keyboards, I’ve recently found an unlikely winner. It’s from the band Chicago and it’s their Chicago 7 album. It’s nothing like the rock pop ballad stuff that they became known for later in their career. On this album their jazz and rock backgrounds blend perfectly making for some great songs and songwriting. “Happy Man” is my favorite song along with “Wishing You Were Here,” which have both been stuck in my head for close to a week now. I strangely had the album sitting around my collection since I was a kid in 70’s but never really listened to it until just recently; it’s some weird luck that I’ve managed to keep it all this time. I kind of laugh know realizing I’ve had this great record sitting in my collection all this time and never knew how great it was.

Here we are on the first Monday of the new year. Hurrah! The band’s resolution for the year is to release our new album and to set that whole whirlwind of promotion in motion. Part of that will likely include our first practice with a live bassist and drummer. So I guess that’s 2 resolutions: 1. release album, 2. practice with live rhythm section. I ‘spose that would lead to 3. set up live shows. Sounds like a full year in and of itself, doesn’t it?